Last week in Leadership Lessons Learned, Ann Bordelon and I welcomed Bill Dillard III, Senior Vice President of Dillard's. After class we connected with Luke Ezell, an honors marketing student in the class, to hear his top takeaways from our conversation. His top takeaways were focused around the importance of gaining experience to grow as a leader, finding your motivation and your why, and the importance of energy as a currency for leadership. Thank you Bill for inspiring our students and sharing valuable lessons that you have learned along the way.

American Express Chairman and CEO Steve Squeri joined the Leadership Academy in New York to discuss purposeful leadership and resiliency. He spoke about how great leaders put service at the center - turning challenges into opportunities to grow and make a lasting impact. “Inconveniencing yourself is a critical leadership trait that will get passed on to others,” Steve said. “Inconvenience yourself to convenience the many. Realize that you’re there to help others, they’re not there to help you.” Read more about his conversation with Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Jennifer Skyler: https://go.amex/FC4g7z

Bringing Real-World Perspectives to the Next Generation of Leaders Last week, Jeff Welday, CIMA, Chief Development Officer of Alternative Investments at True North Advisors, returned to Baylor University to guest lecture within the Baylor University - Hankamer School of Business. Invited by Professor Rachel Woods, J.D., Jeff spoke to upper-level Management and Principled Leadership students on Leadership, Business Ethics, and Crisis Management—sharing insights from more than 30 years of experience as a financial services and C-suite executive. His message focused on leading with integrity, navigating through crisis, and making decisions grounded in purpose—values that reflect True North’s mission to fulfill lives through leadership and service.

The Global Peter Drucker Forum kicked off with a high-energy round of impassioned messages about how leadership must be exercised, recognized, or developed differently than it has been in the past. A senior executive panel reacted on the great Chair Monika Rosen-Philipp Vice President of the Austro-American-Society 🌷 Supportive Leadership© for New Leaders

Srideep Sarkar explores the complex, often overlooked role of skip-level managers. Far from being passive observers, they must balance influence with restraint, strategy with empathy. From avoiding the saviour complex […] The post Trust, talent and the tightrope of skip-level leadership first appeared on . The post Trust, talent and the tightrope of skip-level leadership appeared first on . Read the whole article here: https://lnkd.in/dzAE36Qm

A powerful initiative from the Institute of Directors (IoD) and the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, working together to champion diversity in leadership. By supporting the development of exceptional Black business leaders through access to the IoD’s Certificate in Company Direction and its professional network, this partnership reinforces a simple truth, inclusive leadership strengthens governance, innovation, and society itself. Proud to see the IoD leading by example in building pathways for the next generation of directors.

We’re proud to announce that we are partnering with the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation (SLDF) to champion diversity in leadership.   Together, we’re supporting the careers of three exceptional Black business leaders across the UK. Each recipient will be awarded:   🎓 A fully funded place on the IoD’s Certificate in Company Direction programme. 🤝 A two-year IoD membership, providing access to world-class resources, mentoring, and influential networks.   This partnership reflects the Foundation’s mission to remove barriers to success in sectors where Black professionals are underrepresented.   🔗 Learn more or apply here: https://lnkd.in/g3gSvtFH #IoD #StephenLawrenceDayFoundation #BlackLeadership #ScholarshipOpportunity #BusinessDiversity #LeadershipDevelopment

"As leaders, we must shift from merely managing crises to creating cultures that prevent them. Trauma-informed leadership is not a fad — it’s the future of education. We are not asking teachers to do less — we’re asking systems to do better."--Dr. Renee Beauregard-Bennett (AASA, Sept 2025)

I’m proud to support this worthy effort from National Association of Asian American Professionals - San Francisco (NAAAP San Francisco). Excited to share vulnerable insights and personal learnings with Brandon Lee regarding the lessons learned and impact by addressing my cultural blind spots intentionally in my career. The fact is: even as we’ve championed inclusive leadership and diverse representation, when it comes to Asian professionals moving into influence and leadership roles, the progress remains alarmingly slow. Here’s what the data shows: *In one study of the National Institutes of Health workforce, Asian/Asian-American employees comprised ~21 % of non-leadership staff but only ~6 % of senior leadership. *A separate report covering 65 companies in the Ascend Leadership “Executive Representation in the Fortune 100” found Asians made up ~23 % of the professional workforce yet held only ~12 % of executive roles. *Broadly speaking, although Asian Americans account for ~13 % of professional roles in large companies, they hold only ~6 % of senior management positions and around ~2 % of S&P 500 CEO postings. So what’s going on? Why hasn’t broader inclusion translated into leadership equity? Because we often treat the symptoms (lack of representation) without digging into the root: the blind spots in our culture, leadership definitions and development systems that keep Asian voices and styles outside the “leadership mainstream.” We can take ownership in the process ourselves and not be as dependent on others to make changes in order for us to benefit. This is evident in the success stories we see. In my work — coaching high-potential Asian professionals — I’m convinced: Representation isn’t the endpoint. Influence is. If you’re thinking: “We’ve done the training; we still don’t see the lift,” then this is the invitation: lean into the harder conversation. Join the event. Engage the dialogue. Thanks for Yvonne Chen, Kristine Kushner, John Fok for the commitment in the work.

This week, our partner Rachel Stephenson, Chief Transformation Officer for The City University of New York, delivered a keynote at the CUNY Professional Development Conference on CUNY’s Constructive Dialogue Initiative and our shared work to embed dialogue into the university’s leadership and campus culture. Her session, Dialogue as Leadership: Cultivating Vision, Voice, and Values in Higher Ed, offered a powerful reflection on how constructive dialogue supports leaders in moving from vision to action, grounding their decisions in relationships and trust rather than outcomes alone. Join our newsletter to receive regular updates about our partnership work with CUNY and universities across the country: https://lnkd.in/eaQY9QbB